Nameless
by Cailin na hEireann
Summary: Yugi pays an enlightening trip to the museum with his grandfather and learns several interesting things.


**So here I am, with yet **_**another**_** Yu Gi Oh oneshot. Another rather pointless one at that. Sigh. Oh well, life goes on.**

**Disclaimer: Insert witty remark here, people. You all know the drill.**

Yugi had been walking home from school, just as he did every evening. Quick and quiet, he would slip across the roads like a droplet of water, hoping to avoid the usual confrontations with the school bullies and their cronies. It wasn't a difficult task; he was so tiny compared with the other pedestrians that it was a simple thing to carefully hide himself away in the crowd. He only had to worry about his eccentric hair being spotted and recognised.

He heard someone call his name, and would have frozen in his tracks if the voice hadn't sounded so friendly. Turning slowly, it didn't take him long to spy Joey Wheeler sitting in the veranda of one of the street-side cafes, getting something to eat and drink with his friends before heading home. Joey waved wildly and beckoned him over, a huge smile on his face.

Yugi hesitated, still a little unsure of his former bully's sudden friendliness towards him. He knew it was really only out of gratitude, and maybe a sliver of guilt. After all, Wheeler had done nothing but pick on him since the day they first met, and last week Yugi had tried to protect him anyway, from a bully neither of them had any hope of defeating. It was only gratitude forcing him to be nice to him.

Still, Yugi couldn't help but feel a slight longing; here was a chance to maybe, just maybe, obtain a friend. A real friend, someone he could add to his grand total of two. Tea and Joey Wheeler. He briefly imagined what it would be like. He would never have to take another beating again, from anyone in the school; from what he had seen of Joey, he was fiercely loyal to his friends, and protected them at all costs.

School would change from being Yugi's hell to his heaven.

He was about to take a step, to cross the roads and join the group, when he thought of his grandpa. The elderly man had been feeling slightly off lately, and Yugi didn't want to risk leaving him alone for so long.

It disappointed him, but he smiled tentatively at Joey and shook his head, raising his hand to wave farewell. For a second, it almost seemed like Joey's face fell too, like he was sorry that Yugi couldn't come over. And then he grinned, and mouthed something that looked like '_Tomorrow?'_

Yugi grinned back and nodded, before turning back around and practically skipping homeward, instantly melting into the throng of people. His thoughts were a happy buzz of conflicting emotions and hopes.

_Joey wants _me _to hang out with him after school!_

It was immensely satisfying to feel his loneliness begin to slip away.

He was nearly home, still in an exultant daze and not caring that he kept being trodden on and jostled, when a familiar figure caught his eye. He slowed down and frowned. What was his grandpa doing going into the museum at this hour?

Confused, he followed the surprisingly quick old man as Solomon Muto dodged the people streaming in and out of the museum entrance and disappeared through the front doors.

Yugi's grandfather was unreasonably fond of history and ancient artefacts, being a former archaeologist and having spent much of his life abroad, working on digs and immersing himself in the past. Yugi himself had been dragged to more excavations and exhibitions than he cared to remember, but he didn't really mind. He didn't love history like his grandpa did, but he didn't dislike it either.

Pushing his way into the museum, he quickly scanned the room, searching for a clue as to where his grandfather had gone. The main entrance room wasn't as crowded as he expected it to be, but he supposed it was getting late, and the museum would close for the day soon. Only a few die-hard enthusiasts were left to wander the halls alone, taking closer looks at the artefacts and cheerfully getting lost amongst the remnants of what once was.

It didn't take Yugi long to find his grandpa. He was in the one place he loved more than all the other exhibits: Ancient Egypt.

The elderly man was standing in front of a glass case, peering intensely in. He didn't appear to have noticed another person enter the room, and his back was to his grandson.

Yugi didn't immediately announce his presence; he hung back a little, watching his grandpa examine whatever was in the case with a curiosity he usually reserved solely for history and games.

Eventually, Yugi quietly walked up to stand beside the elderly man, not daring to say a word lest he break his concentration. Solomon turned his head and acknowledged him, not seeming in the least startled to find him there, and then returned his attention to the artefact.

Yugi followed his gaze and examined it, immediately appreciating how absurdly beautiful the thing was. It was a gold crown, a jewelled band with sides that spread out like wings. Obviously, it was meant to be balanced on the head, rather than completely covering it.

Yugi found himself transfixed, despite himself. There was something about the crown. It gave him the unsettling feeling that the sands of Egypt, all the power that had once shifted on them, was contained in this one object. Like it was a beacon, a shrine to everything that had once made Egypt the greatest civilisation on Earth.

He blinked, and the sensation was over. It struck a familiar cord within him, and he immediately recognised where he had felt it before: emanating from the Millennium Puzzle. The puzzle that now hung around his neck, recently completed for the first time in centuries and glittering like the sun.

A similar effect seemed to be holding his grandpa in a trance. His old, kind eyes were decades and continents away, sifting through memories and revelling in them once more.

'Yugi,' he said, so quietly Yugi almost didn't catch it. 'Did I ever tell you about the time I was shot in a tomb, when I was in Egypt?'

He _had_ told him before, but Yugi was hardly going to say that. Instead, he shook his head, and continued to stare at the crown as his grandfather began recounting his adventure.

'It was years ago. Long before you were born, long before I even owned the Game Shop. I was an archaeologist, and a gambler, but I still adored games as much as I do now. A game is what brought me to Egypt in the first place.

I had heard tales of a puzzle belonging to a dead man, a spirit who had once been renowned, when he was alive, for having such a particular aptitude for games that people began to believe it was a gods-given gift. He had beaten everyone who had ever dared to challenge him from a very young age, and with such ease that he earned himself the title 'the Prince of Games'. Of course, I can only imagine that when he grew older, this nickname progressed to 'King of Games'.' Here, his grandpa paused to chuckle darkly at some unknown joke.

'I hired myself two native guides and we had managed to traverse all the traps in this particular tomb, all the corridors and fake doors and tricks. We had reached the inner chambers, where all the really valuable things were. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. I was quite naïve in that sense.

One of the guides had been killed already; he'd lost the game to his fear, his nervousness. It was a fatal mistake. His brother, my other guide, was, naturally, upset, but his mind was still focused primarily on the treasure.

And so, when we had finally reached the inner chamber, and he had assured himself that it was safe enough to enter, he shot me in the shoulder to prevent me from getting any further. His intentions were to take the treasure for himself and leave me there, intentions I should have seen from the start.'

Again, the old man paused for a moment, thinking hard.

'In the end, before he could accomplish that, an enormous…. _something_ swallowed him as he was trying to reach the treasure. Gone, just like that. I was in too much shock to really notice much else, but I did know that I was going to die too. And soon.

When the bullet struck me, I had been walking across a bridged of sorts. I fell over the edge, and was only holding on with fingers that were becoming increasingly weak. I was going to let go eventually, and I knew it.'

Solomon's face had taken on a look of wonder, a look Yugi was very familiar with. His grandfather wore it every time he remembered this part of the story.

'And then, _he _appeared. He was standing over me, and I knew I was looking at the Great Pharaoh. The one who had died thousands of years ago, and whose name had been lost in time. He looked straight at me, and it was like staring into the face of the sun; I had to look away.

He smiled and reached down to hold out a hand to me, and said, ' I've been waiting for you, Siamun' like I was someone he knew. Or someone he thought he knew. He pulled me up, and vanished, but not without leaving me the feeling that I _had _to take the treasure. And so I did. And I have never forgotten him.'

There was a comfortable silence for a few moments, almost respectful, like the two of them were the only people in the world who remembered the Nameless Pharaoh, the one who had lived and died so many thousands of years ago. Yugi stared blankly at the crown; he had lost himself in his grandpa's memories, and was still trying to find a way out when Solomon spoke again.

'You look a lot like him, you know.' His voice had turned wistful.

Yugi's eyes widened. Grandpa had never told him that before. The old man caught his expression and smiled a little sadly, nodding to himself, it seemed.

'Yes. You have nearly the exact same hair as he had, and he was only a few inches taller than you are now.'

He sighed, gazing one last time at the crown. He almost looked apologetic for a moment, like the Pharaoh had petitioned him to do something and he hadn't done it. His eyes shimmered, hiding secrets and regrets Yugi could never know about.

Yugi instinctively knew that his grandpa wasn't finished the story yet; there was one last thing to be said. He waited patiently.

Finally, the old man lifted his head again and stared at the ceiling, as though there was something immensely important up there only he could see. 'Do you know that Ancient Egyptians used to believe that if you didn't have a name when you died, you would be trapped on earth as a spirit forever, never able to rejoin your family and friends in the afterlife? Your name was one of your most important possessions; you would be lost if it was lost.'

He was silent for another second or two, and then his shoulders slumped, and he was back to being the old man coming down with a slight cold. He was himself again.

'Let's go home, Yugi. I just got some new cards this morning I want to show you.'

He shuffled off, leaving Yugi still standing in front of the old crown. He leaned forward for one last look, and something caught his eye. It was a small plaque, hidden in the corner of the wall next to the glass case. It had writing on it.

_Crown of the Nameless Pharaoh, discovered - 1961, near Luxor. Kindly donated by Dr. Solomon Muto._

He was still staring at the plaque, wondering at it, when the lights flickered. Flickered again. And again, before staying off completely, plunging the room into darkness with a tiny shred of light coming from the open doorway to the main entrance. So it was only the room he was in that was experiencing the blackout. The light coming from the distant front entrance was just enough for Yugi to see it glint off the crown his Grandpa had discovered all those years before.

And the figure now standing over it.

His muscles locked in place with fear, and he instinctively held his breath. His pulse thudded in his ears.

It was just a shadow, really. Something that, for some reason, gave off the impression that it didn't belong there. It wasn't substantial; Yugi sensed it wasn't real at all.

But that didn't make the terror it instilled in him any less real.

In the darkness of the room it was just another shade of black, softer and purer than the rest of the shadows. Yugi watched it reach forward with long, wraithlike fingers, trying to touch the crown. It's fingers stopped before they could touch it, like it was being halted by something invisible.

He _felt _it make a soft noise, like a whimper. He _felt _it like he had made the noise as well.

The figure tried, again, to touch the crown, and once again was stopped by something before it could. And then it sighed, a whisper of breath and sadness, and the shadow trickled out of existence.

It was Yugi's first glimpse of the spirit of the puzzle.

**There. Wasn't that fun? By the way, I'm not sure about the 'no name, no afterlife' thing, but I'm almost certain I read about it somewhere. I may be wrong.**

**Anyway, feel free to review. Only if you wish, of course. I wouldn't dream of forcing you into anything… For now.**

**Ciao all. **


End file.
